Call for more cull compensation

By Richard Charteris

Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief's Oct. 27 announcement raising the future compensation maximum for slaughtered sheep was too little, too late as far as Quebec shepherds were concerned. Since January 1997, close to 12,000 Quebec sheep have been destroyed because they were suspected of being in contact with scrapie-infected animals.

The following day, an estimated 200 chanting and placard-wielding farmers and two flatbed trailers carrying sheep assembled outside a Hull, Que., hotel where Vanclief was giving a lunch time address to participants in the Canadian Farm Business Management Council's Agriculture Risk Management conference.

The demonstrators called on Vanclief to make the payments retroactive. A statement from the minister's office indicated that was beyond his legal or legislative authority.

Vanclief raised the compensation maximum per sheep to $600, as recommended by the Compensation Core Working Group of the Canadian Animal Health Consultative Committee. Additionally, the compensation distinction between grade and purebred animals was eliminated. Previous maximum amounts paid out were $150 and $300 respectively.

Maximum compensation isn't guaranteed, however. Payouts are determined by an objective assessment of the market value of individual animals, says Dr. Claude Lavigne, director of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's animal health and production division. Professional evaluators - "auction market people, for example" - who are aware of the market, will be assigned the task, says Lavigne.

"It's not the slaughter price," continues Lavigne, "but what producers might get if they were selling a similar breeding animal on the open market, with hide and wool figured in."

Throughout the summer, Bloc Québécois MPs had been urging the government to call for a moratorium on the slaughter of Quebec sheep until a new compensation structure was put in place. Desneiges Pepin, president of the Quebec Federation of Sheep Producers, which represents 850 provincial producers, says 11 per cent of Quebec's flock has been destroyed since 1997.

Earlier in the summer, Pepin said QFSP supported the government's control measures, but questioned the number of animals being slaughtered as a preventative measure: "You just can't push producers to the edge of bankruptcy and do nothing."

Lavigne says the 7,000 Quebec sheep slaughtered through the first week of November "represents quite an increase" over last year. "Our investigations continue, and we won't be surprised if we find other animals that need to be destroyed by year's end." In Ontario, reports Lavigne, scrapie has been identified in only four flocks, leading to the slaughter of 257 animals.

One of the main purposes of paying compensation is to encourage people to do more reporting on the health of their animals, says Lavigne. There may have been some reluctance to report new cases at previous compensation levels, he says. Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency chairman Ralph Stephen, while lauding the increased cap, says producers have to consider on-farm quality control, not how much they get for destroyed animals. Stephen says "thorough record keeping and traceability" among all producers is needed if the sheep industry is to cut down on the spread of scrapie and maintain consumer confidence.

Earlier in the summer, reports surfaced about a new test for scrapie that involved taking a sample of lymphoid tissue from a sheep's eyelids and testing for the presence of the protein that is believed to cause scrapie.

While Lavigne says CFIA is "embarking on a technology development test to validate the procedure for use in Canada," he cautions that it will be no magic bullet.

"Remember, the test is done on the third eyelid of live sheep, a difficult task. It's labour and muscle intensive in the first place to handle the sheep. Trained personnel have to do the tissue sampling. Then there are the lab costs on top of that."

Lavigne expresses doubt at the $25 per test cost bandied about in some quarters. "I've no guess as to what it might cost, except to say I suspect it would cost a lot more. Some day a test like that might be cost-effective and appropriate to use on a local or limited scope, in flocks where scrapie is suspected. But it will no doubt be an expensive procedure to use widely, on the whole Canadian flock, for example. What we're all really hoping for is a blood test."

Until such time, says Lavigne, herds will continue to destroyed.

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Out of the fruit loop

By CHRISTINA SELBY

Free enterprise and orderly marketing went head to head in a hearing over nectarines before the Farm Products Marketing Commission last month.

The commission reiterated last February's initial decision, again turning down a request by the Tender Fruit Producers' Marketing Board for a vote on whether nectarines should be included in the marketing board's mandate.

The commission wrote it "was not persuaded that there was sufficient reason to conduct an expression of opinion vote" on the issue. The two growers representing free enterprise at the hearing, Abe Epp and Ted Lizak - the largest nectarine producers in the province - would have no argument with the commission's decision.

Epp grows 346 acres of nectarines, as well as other fruits, in Niagara-on-the-Lake. And he didn't see the vote or the board as something nectarine growers need.

In his submission to Farm Products, Epp presented a list of 20 growers representing 639 acres of nectarine production who were not in favour of a vote. Epp said that board resources - "really just the farmers' money" - would be wasted on a vote "in the face of such overwhelming solidarity amongst the true commercial producers of nectarines."

Numbers on the total production area of nectarines are tough to pin down, with OMAFRA figures indicating 750 acres planted in 1997 and Vineland Research Station reporting 1,100 in 1998, but Epp estimates the total production area is 850 to 900 acres. Vineland estimates indicate 130 growers in the province, but Epp says his list of 20 represents the "main players in the marketplace."

The commission agreed, writing in the decision that it was "not convinced that the request [for a vote] came from persons who were representative of those engaged in the production of nectarines."

Epp said he grows about 50 per cent of the nectarine crop in Canada. He told the commission that Ontario nectarine growers have taken risks, "invested heavily in experimental plantings" and weathered the large learning curve. "We have succeeded and we resent greatly the board attempting to expropriate our success."

"We don't need more money," says Len Troup, chairman of the tender fruit board and a nectarine grower. What the board is trying to obtain is equity for all tender fruit growers, he says. Any financial benefit of nectarine growers' inclusion in the board would be revenue-neutral, with other growers paying less across the board.

Troup is concerned that not all growers are aware of the board's position and that, with the commission's latest decision, "there won't be any public debate on the issues."

Hector Delanghe, a tender fruit grower in Blenheim, including six acres of nectarines, agrees that Epp and other large-scale growers in Ontario "have done a good job" of developing the nectarine market, but he still worries about the future.

Research into new and improved varieties for the Ontario climate should be ongoing if nectarines are to enjoy a long-term future, he says. And the impetus for research has to come from growers. Without the financial input that board membership delivers, "there'll be very little work done in nectarines," says Delanghe, president of the Ontario Fruit Testing Association.

Nectarine growers have had no difficulty finding markets for their product. The crop generally fetches "at least $3 per box more" than peaches and doesn't require the services of a marketing board, Epp said.

Ted Lizak, who grows 100 acres of nectarines in Grimsby, told the commission that he wouldn't want a grower with a couple of acres "deciding how my nectarines will be sold."

Epp dismissed the fear that rapidly increased production would lead to over-supply and price declines. "I don't see any limit" to the market potential, he said. "I intend to do my share to increase plantings."

Troup says that, while he doesn't want to be "the crier of doom," history has shown that one crop can pull down others. "When peaches are in trouble, it's harder to get a good price for pears," he says. "Who's to say nectarines won't do the same thing?"

Nectarines are an unregulated crop operating in the market with regulated crops, and that state of affairs will eventually impact on all tender fruit growers, says Troup.

The commission stated that "it would take a considerable time for [nectarine] production to meet the demands of the domestic marketplace and also fill export markets." What Troup and the board want to know is what will happen then?

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Life in the Fastrac

When it comes to reducing downtime on field switches, the von Westerholt brothers put the pedal to the metal

By John Muggeridge

Harriston cash croppers Bert and Egon von Westerholt haven't been slapped with a speeding ticket - yet. But when it comes to the brothers' aptly-named 155 "Fastrac" 65 tractor from JCB, it may be a case of never say never.

The von Westerholt brothers, who have brought their acreage from 100 to 4,000 since 1980, know their tractors. As well as the JCB, they have a 1985 Mercedes-Benz MB Trac with added dump box, four John Deeres, and a Ford articulated to get corn, soybeans, wheat, canola and seed barley in the ground over an 80-km radius between Mount Forest and Kindardine.

The brothers drive a rainbow of colours, but they rave about the bright yellow 155-hp British-built Fastrac, which can hit 65 km per hour versus conventional tractors' 25. Egon says he can make the 70-km trip from Harriston to Ripley in 65 minutes in the Fastrac, versus two-and-a-half hours in the John Deere 6400. Over the past two years, the brothers have put 20,000 km on the machine. Last year alone they covered 8,000 acres with the Fastrac hauling the sprayer.

With full suspension on the front and rear axles, the ride is smooth even on bumpy no-till ground, says Egon: "You notice it on your back and you feel it on the field. The North American manufacturers are slow on that [suspension]."

The wide cab with all the options has a passenger seat and a lever for switching from 540 to 1,000 rpm on the pto. Despite the fast road speeds, disc brakes give good stopping power, says Egon.

The brothers were familiar with the Fastrac from their native Germany, where farmers use it on the Autobahn, a highway with a minimum speed of 80 km/hr and a maximum of whatever. They were the first farmers to try out the Fastrac in Ontario, buying it from Kitchener JCB dealer Advance Equipment three years ago.

Used largely for spraying with the von Westerholts' 950-gallon Hardi sprayer with 80-foot Kyndestoft air boom, the Fastrac acts like a self-propelled sprayer, only you don't have to park it in the off-season: The Fastrac makes a perfect utility tractor for hauling implements in field switches, spreading fertilizer and pulling a grain buggy at harvest.

"When we aren't spraying, it's a tractor or a truck," says Egon.

While the von Westerholts' Fastrac doesn't have the lugging power for heavy tillage work, over in Goderich cropper Achim Stoecker uses his 165-pto-hp Fastrac to pull a six-furrow plow. "It's a good machine....It's excellent on the road. It's a smooth ride," he says.

The von Westerholts' machine would cost $130,000 today. In its third year, it has 1,200 hours on the clock. The brothers aren't thinking trade yet, but they don't think it will be difficult to deal, having already had inquiries.

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Don't bet on a cold winter

For more than a year, media reports have tried to blame every unusual weather event in Ontario and elsewhere - whether the warm winter and spring, the January ice storm, the summer forest fires, floods in Asia and the U.S. or hurricanes in the Pacific - on El Nino.

Mind you, some - although not all - of those reports appeared to have merit. However, no sooner did the last vestiges of El Nino disappear from the tropical Pacific during late spring than a new weather scapegoat appeared : La Nina - El Nino's frostier sister, sometimes also called El Viejo or anti-El Nino.

During the summer and fall, numerous reports in newspapers and on radio and television suggested that scientists were now predicting that La Nina, having squeezed El Nino aside, would bring with it the prospect of a snowier, colder than normal Canadian winter.

That forecast, I think, is still somewhat premature. Mind you, during late spring and early summer the stalled trade winds in the tropics did pick up steam, and the unusually warm pool of water on the surface of the eastern tropical Pacific (an El Nino feature) rapidly changed to a large pool of cooler waters - a harbinger of the onset of a possible La Nina. Hence the rumours of a cold winter, perhaps out of a sense of guilt for the remarkably mild winter we enjoyed in 1997-98, although ice storm victims might argue how enjoyable that was.

However, in subsequent months, the initial cooling of the sea surface in the region faltered. Temperatures by the end of October were still only about 1 to 2C colder than average conditions, marginally lower than in July. Various forecasts indicate that these weak La Nina conditions are likely to intensify somewhat during late fall and winter, but now only project a moderate event.

There's another reason why a cold, snowier winter in Ontario isn't a sure bet. History suggests that the likelihood of a cold winter during a La Nina event seems much less certain than a warm winter during an El Nino. While most La Nina events do appear to cause average winter conditions across Canada to be colder and snowier than normal, particularly in western Canada, that is not necessarily the case for Ontario. For example, during the last 10 El Nino events, four winters within the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin were colder than normal, one was near normal and five were above the average. Only six of the El Nino winters had more snow than normal.

Springs were a little more consistent, with seven of the 10 years being colder (and generally wetter) than normal - in other words, rather even odds that hardly makes a rigorous case for predicting a hard winter and chilly spring for 1998-99.

To further muddy the crystal ball, Environment Canada's long-range statistical forecast for weather tendencies during the winter of 1998-99 suggests that temperatures in western Canada will be warmer than usual, with eastern Canada colder than normal. In general, precipitation is also projected to be near to below normal across southern Canada - somewhat inverse to the "typical" la Nina winter.

The "canonical correlation analysis" model used for the forecast assesses the past year's pattern of change in sea surface temperatures (in many ways the "driver" for global weather patterns in subsequent months) and compares the results with 35 years of similar data to identify the historical year that best fits the observed pattern. That year is then used as the model for predicting what is likely to come in the following seasons. The forecast, while having only a moderately successful performance record, has surprised some of those who assumed a La Nina winter would bring cold, snowy conditions. Hence the need for caution before jumping on the bandwagon of the doom and gloom of a cold La Nina winter forecast.

One thing is virtually certain. The coming winter will undoubtedly be colder than last year's record warm conditions. Perhaps La Nina may yet come on strong in the months to come, and the Ontario winter could indeed become a real humdinger. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it!
Henry Hengeveld is a senior adviser on climate change, Environment Canada

© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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